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Amon Tobin was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where he spent most of his early childhood. The surname Tobin comes from his Irish stepfather. At the age of 9, he and his family left Brazil to live in Morocco, Netherlands, London, Portugal and Madeira Island. Tobin settled in Brighton, England as a teenager which remained his permanent residence until 2002. There he began producing electronic music in his bedroom with samplers and other audio equipment such as an Amstrad Studio 100 4-track, although he was "not really involved in the music scene" at that time. While taking an editorial photography class at a university in Brighton, he responded to a magazine promotion for the London-based Ninebar record label asking artists to send in demos of their songs. Ninebar signed Tobin to the label in 1996 after hearing his early work, and he traveled between his home in Brighton and the studios in London to produce his first official works.

In January 2004, Tobin was contracted by video game company Ubisoft Montreal to compose the soundtrack for the third installment of their critically successful Splinter Cell series, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. To facilitate using the music in a video game, where the level of action or plot can change in real-time, each track was broken down by Tobin into four distinct but similar parts based on their level of intensity. The game's developers could then use each section to provide music based on the actions of the player. The album continued the trend Tobin started with Out From Out Where, as he used more original samples during production. In addition to being included with the game, Ninja Tune released the score as an individual album in 2005, titled Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Soundtrack, several months before the game's release. It was received well, benefiting from a wider audience of reviewers in both the music and gaming industries. Ben Hogwood of MusicOMH.com applauded Tobin's use of melody and texture, adding that he controlled the sounds with the "clarity of a classical orchestrator." He later recorded a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound version of the album with audio engineer Bobby Azinsky in a dedicated Solid State Logic studio in Los Angeles.

Amon Tobin

Tobin's sixth studio album, Foley Room, was released in 2007. The title alludes to the "Foley Rooms" used by recording engineers and Foley artists to record sound effects in the movie industry. On this album, Tobin concluded his transition away from prerecorded source material that started with Out From Out Where. All of the samples used for production were recorded by himself using an omnidirectional microphone. Recorded primarily in Montreal, San Francisco, and Seattle, the samples came from a wide range of sources including motorbikes, tigers, insects, and water falling from a tap. Also contributing to the album were the string quartet Kronos Quartet, drummer Stefan Schneider, and harpist Sarah Pagé. Foley Room's use of field-recordings was used to help promote the album, including two official pre-release trailers posted to YouTube. Nate Dorr of PopMatters.com called it a "smooth, natural progression" from his work on Supermodified. The first single, "Bloodstone", was released to the iTunes Music Store months before the rest of the album. Ninja Tune also published a DVD titled Foley Room: Found Footage which documented the recording process.